A Comparative Study Of Urban Competitiveness Based On The Dominant Indicators And The Modificatory Double-Diamond Model

Globalization has not only made the boundaries between countries become more blurred, but also made the region and urban play a more important role with the increasingly intense competition in the whole world. With the advent of the urban age, as well as the core of the region, urban also becomes the mainstay of it. Nowadays urban competitiveness is not only related to the future of specific area, but also the rise and fall of countries and even the survival of the nation. Since the beginning of 1990s, the research on theory and practice of urban competitiveness develops continuously. Based on the well-known and classic theories at home and abroad, the thesis focuses on two cases of urban Shanghai and Singapore through comparing and analyzing their strength of urban competitiveness. Combined with today's international situation and economic development stage, here I adopt two different ways namely dominant indicators evaluation system and modificatory double diamond model which have been revised and amended according to the new characters of times and the choice of two cases of cities. Through research on the motivation of urban competitiveness, not only it will be helpful for the two target cities to know more clearly the strengths and weaknesses existing in their urban competition, but also it can benefit the urban to improve their competition level in the international community.The case study about the two cities Shanghai and Singapore is from the report on global urban competition of 2007-2008, which pointed out that Singapore ranked No.8, but Shanghai only ranked No.46 in the latest rank of comprehensive urban competition in the whole world. Both of them are the metropolis in Asia and many aspects of their economies develop in the same way, but there exists an obvious difference between them in urban competition. The reasons why the competitive difference exists and which aspects it mainly embodied in are the essential topics to be discussed in the thesis.The whole thesis includes five parts: the first part is the preface and it mainly talks about the purpose and significance, the method and content of the research, the definition of urban competition and the summary on it at home and abroad. In the second part, based on the classic theories on urban competition, the thesis concludes the difference between them and then draws forth the comparative methods used in this thesis. In the third part, the background and basis of case cities including Shanghai and Singapore are reviewed, and here it highlights the two different methods of comparison and analysis which are dominant indicators evaluation system and modificatory double-diamond model. Next part is the core of the paper and it focuses on the comparison and analysis of the two cities according to the different methods. What's more, this part also lists the main conclusions by analysis. The last part is about the summary and the further thought.Using the two quite different comparison methods, the main conclusions can be got from the analysis and research are:①Compared to Shanghai, Singapore has a more significant advantage in human capital and especially in the aspect of international talents;②During a very long period of time in the past and the future, the great contribution to the economy of FDI can not be ignored. FDI has brought Singapore a qualitative leap in its economic development, and its efficiency is higher than that of Shanghai.③The efficiency of government management in Singapore has more competitive advantage because Singapore is not only can be regarded an urban but also a country.④Highly depending on the world economy, the economic development of Singapore is more likely to be affected by the financial crisis and it has a larger fluctuation.⑤The international activities of Singapore perform better than that of Shanghai. But being the most developed city in China, Shanghai has the strong support of steadiness not only from the international market, but also from the board national market.⑥Shanghai developed much faster than Singapore in recent 10 years and with the continuous and stable growth rate it may exceed Singapore in the near future. Compared with Singapore, Shanghai prevails in the future competitiveness.